Figure 1.

Principle of Cancer Vaccination. (A) Vaccine selection and preparation – Upon selection of suitable candidates a vaccine platform is chosen which includes either peptides, DNA or RNA. This platform is then packaged into a vehicle which includes either dendritic cells (DCs), viral vectors, heat shock proteins (HSPs), or montanide. The vaccine is then combined or paired with an adjuvant in an effort to boost the efficacy of the vaccine. Common choices of adjuvants include tetanus toxoid, poly-ICLC, imiquimod, GM-CSF, immune checkpoint inhibitors, as well as many others. (B) Vaccines can be administered intra-venously, intra-nodally, intra-dermally, or intra-muscularly. (C) Antigens are then presented by APCs to naïve or memory T cells in the lymph node. For GBM, presentation most commonly occurs in the deep-seated cervical lymph node. (D) Primed T cells migrate to the site of the tumor where they mount an anti-tumor immune response.